The
New Age movement has sparked a new interest in Native
American traditional spirituality among white women who
claim to be feminists. Indian spirituality, with its respect
for nature and the interconnectedness of all things, is
often presented as the panacea for all individual and global
problems. Not surprisingly, many white "feminists" see the
opportunity to make a great profit from this new craze. They
sell sweat lodges or sacred pipe ceremonies, which promise
to bring individual and global healing. Or they sell books
and records that supposedly describe Indian traditional
practices so that you too, can be Indian.

On the
surface, it may appear that this new craze is based on a
respect for Indian spirituality. In fact, however, the New
Age movement is part of a very old story of white racism and
genocide against the Indian people. The "Indian" ways that
the white, New Age "feminists" are practicing have little
grounding in reality.

True
spiritual leaders do not make a profit from their teachings,
whether it's through selling books, workshops, sweat lodges,
or otherwise. Spiritual leaders teach the people because it
is their responsibility to pass what they have learned from
their elders to the youngest generations. They do not charge
for their services.

Furthermore, the idea that an Indian medicine woman would
instruct a white woman to preach the "true path" of Indian
spirituality sounds more reminiscent of evangelical
Christianity than traditional Indian spirituality. Indian
religions are community-based, not proselytizing religions.
For this reason, there is not ONE Indian religion, as many
New Agers would have you believe. Indian spiritual practices
reflect the needs of a particular community. Indians do not
generally believe that their way is "the" way, and
consequently, they have no desire to tell outsiders about
their practices. Also, considering how many Indians there
are who do not know the traditions, why would a medicine
woman spend so much time teaching a white woman? A medicine
woman would be more likely to advise a white woman to look
into her OWN culture and find what is liberating in it.

However, some white women seem determined NOT to look into
their own cultures for sources of strength. This is
puzzling, since pre-Christian European cultures are also
earth-based and contain many of the same elements that white
women are ostensibly looking for in Native American
cultures. This phenomenon leads me to suspect that there is
a more insidious motive for latching onto Indian
spirituality.

When
white "feminists" see how white people have historically
oppressed others and how they are coming very close to
destroying the earth, they often want to disassociate
themselves from their whiteness. They do this by opting to
"become Indian." In this way, they can escape responsibility
and accountability for white racism.

Of
course, white "feminists" want to become only partly Indian.
They do not want to be part of our struggles for survival
against genocide, and they do not want to fight for treaty
rights or an end to substance abuse or sterilization abuse.
They do not want to do anything that would tarnish their
romanticized notions of what it means to be an Indian.

Moreover, they want to become Indian without holding
themselves accountable to Indian communities. If they did
they would have to listen to Indians telling them to stop
carrying around sacred pipes, stop doing their own sweat
lodges and stop appropriating our spiritual practices.
Rather, these New Agers see Indians as romanticized gurus
who exist only to meet their consumerist needs.
Consequently, they do not understand our struggles for
survival and thus they can have no genuine understanding of
Indian spiritual practices.

While
New Agers may think that they are escaping white racism by
becoming "Indian," they are in fact continuing the same
genocidal practices of their forebears. The one thing that
has maintained the survival of Indian people through 500
years of colonialism has been the spiritual bonds that keep
us together. When the colonizers saw the strength of our
spirituality, they tried to destroy Indian religion by
making them illegal. They forced Indian children into white
missionary schools and cut their tongues if they spoke their
Native languages.

Sundances were made illegal, and Indian participation in the
Ghost Dance precipitated the Wounded Knee massacre. The
colonizers recognized that it was our spirituality that
maintained our spirit of resistance and sense of community.
Even today, Indians do not have religious freedom. In a
recent ruling the Supreme Court has determined that American
Indians do not have the right to sue under the American
Indian Religious Freedom Act. They have also determined that
if Indian religious freedom conflicts with any "compelling"
United States interest, the government always supersedes
Indian peoples' freedom of religion.

Many
white New Agers continue this practice of destroying Indian
spirituality. They trivialize Native American practices so
that these practices lose their spiritual force, and they
have the white privilege and power to make themselves heard
at the expense of Native Americans. Our voices are silenced,
and consequently the younger generation of Indians who are
trying to find their way back to the Old Ways becomes
hopelessly lost in this morass of consumerist spirituality.

These
practices also promote the subordination of Indian women to
white women. We are told that we are greedy if we do not
choose to share our spirituality. Apparently, it is our
burden to service white women's needs rather than to spend
time organizing within our own communities. Their perceived
need for warm and fuzzy mysticism takes precedence over our
need to survive.

The
New Age movement completely trivializes the oppression we as
Indian women face: Indian women are suddenly no longer the
women who are forcibly sterilized and tested with unsafe
drugs such as Depo Provera; we are no longer the women who
have a life expectancy of 47 years; and we are no longer the
women who generally live below the poverty level and face a
75 percent unemployment rate. No, we're too busy being cool
and spiritual.

This
trivialization of our oppression is compounded by the fact
that nowadays anyone can be Indian if s/he wants to. All
that is required is that one be Indian in a former life, or
take part in a sweat lodge, or be monitored by a "medicine
woman," or read a how-to book.

Since,
according to this theory, anyone can now be "Indian," then
the term Indians no longer refers specifically to those
people who have survived five hundred years of colonization
and genocide. This furthers the goals of white supremacists
to abrogate treaty rights and to take away what little we
have left. When everyone becomes "Indian," then it is easy
to lose sight of the specificity of oppression faced by
those who are REALLY Indian in THIS life. It is no wonder we
have such a difficult time finding non-Indians to support
our struggles when the New Age movement has completely
disguised our oppression.

The
most disturbing aspect about these racist practices is that
they are promoted in the name of feminism. Sometimes it
seems that I can't open a feminist periodical without seeing
ads promoting white "feminist" practices with little
medicine wheel designs. I can't seem to go to a feminist
conference without the woman who begins the conference with
a ceremony being the only Indian presenter. Participants
then feel so "spiritual" after this opening that they fail
to notice the absence of Indian women in the rest of the
conference or Native American issues in the discussions. And
I certainly can't go to a feminist bookstore without seeing
books by Lynn Andrews and other people who exploit Indian
spirituality all over the place. It seems that, while
feminism is supposed to signify the empowerment of all
women, it obviously does not include Indian women.

If
white feminists are going to act in solidarity with their
Indian sisters, they must take a stand against Indian
spiritual abuse. Feminist book and record stores should stop
selling these products, and feminist periodicals should stop
advertising these products. Women who call themselves
feminists should denounce exploitative practices wherever
they see them.

Many
have claimed that Indians are not respecting "freedom of
speech" when they demand that whites stop promoting and
selling books that exploit Indian spirituality. But
promotion of this material is destroying freedom of speech
for Native Americans by ensuring that our voices will never
be heard. Feminists have already made choices about what
they will promote (I haven't seen many books by right-wing,
fundamentalist women sold in feminist bookstores, since
feminists recognize that these books are oppressive to
women.) The issue is not censorship; the issue is racism.
Feminists must make a choice either to respect Indian
political and spiritual autonomy, or to promote materials
that are fundamentally racist under the guise of "freedom of
speech."

Respecting the integrity of Native people and their
spirituality does not mean that there can never be
cross-cultural sharing. However, such a sharing should take
place in a way that is respectful to Indian people.

The
way to be respectful is for non-Indians to become involved
in our political struggles and to develop an on-going
relation with Indian COMMUNITIES based on trust and mutual
respect. When this happens, Indian people may invite a
non-Indian to take part in a ceremony, but it will be on
Indian terms.

I
hesitate to say this much about cross-cultural sharing
however, because many white people take this to mean that
they can join in our struggles solely for the purpose of
being invited to ceremonies. If this does not occur, they
feel that Indians have somehow unfairly withheld spiritual
teachings from them. We are expected to pay the price in
spiritual exploitation in order to gain allies in our
political struggles.

When
non-Indians say they will help us, but only on their terms,
that is not help - that is blackmail. We are not obligated
to teach anyone about our spirituality. It is our choice if
we want to share with people who we think will be
respectful. It is white people who owe it to us to fight for
our survival, since they are living on the land for which
our people were murdered.

It is
also important for non-Indians to build relationships with
Indian communities, rather than with specific individuals.
Many non-Indians express their confusion about knowing who
is and who is not a legitimate spiritual teacher. The only
way for non-Indians to know who legitimate teachers are is
to develop ongoing relationships with Indian COMMUNITIES.
When they know the community, they will learn who the
community respects as its spiritual leaders. This is a
process that takes time.

Unfortunately, many white feminists do not want to take this
time in their quest for instant spirituality. Profit-making
often gets in the way of true sisterhood. However, white
feminists should know that as long as they take part in
Indian spiritual abuse, either by being consumers of it or
by refusing to take a stand on it, Indian women will
consider white "feminists" to be nothing more than agents in
the genocide of their people.

OUR
SPIRITUALITY IS NOT FOR SALE!

Editor's Note: The article above first appeared in the
"Cultural Survival Quarterly", Winter 1994 and was written by
Andrea Smith, who is a member of "Women Of All Red Nations" in
Chicago, and she is the Chairperson for Women of Color for the
"National Coalition Against Sexual Assault". While branded
by right-wing Catholics as controversial, pro-gay, pro-abortion and a
radical feminist, her opinions bear a strong resemblance to
truth that some people find offensive. We do not.